Written Down and Spoken Out
Sierra Holland
If spoken word poetry is not a phrase you find yourself familiarized with, I suggest you set aside some time out of your typical afternoon and venture to a cite like youtube and watch as much as your brain can handle. As you have to do is type in the phrase “spoken word poetry” and one link will lead you to the next and so on until you have thoroughly and enjoyably spent 4 hours hearing poets recite the words they’ve written with the same excitement and gust that it was written with.
For hundreds of years, writers have used pen and paper and ancient forms, iambic pentameter, haiku, sonnets. They have relied on context clues and allusions and evocative emotional speech in order to awaken the souls of their readers, to invite them to live in the same world, with the same emotions and experience the original intentions of the writer.
Spoken word poetry is poetry in a performing arts fashion. Instead of relying on the intelligence of the reader to pick up on the poems various cues and abstractness, the performer, most times the author, is able to create physical and vocal language that help the reader, or in this case, the listener to experience the poem however they would like. In the same way that a playwright will tell you that there plays will never be able to fully experience all the piece has to give until it is seen on a stage, with handpicked actors, expertly made costumes, and the appropriate staging and lighting elements. It was written specifically to be performed, to come alive in front of an audience and be more than just a figment of his or her imagination.
Performance poetry in al its forms, slam, spoken word, and some forms of rap, is unique because it is specifically written to be performed in front of some type of audience, either live or via video. When something is written to be performed, it is just a much an art of learning for the speaker as it is for the audience. Intentionality is a speaker’s best friend. They must monitor themselves very carefully, hand gestures, body language, facial expressions; even the tiniest movement can mean something of great intellect to the audience.
Performance poetry is to written poetry as books are to movies. There are many who would still prefer to be able to read the words off the page, contemplating the experiences of the writer and allowing themselves to delve into a world they cant quite figure out and finally accept the mystery that only the original author knows. Some find it comforting to read line after line and assess the various elements of the poem, rhyme scheme , imagery, poetic form.
And still others prefer the visual element that performance poetry creates. They enjoy the sense of urgency that comes from having to strain to hear every single syllable from the speaker’s lips before it floats away into the rest of the audience. They crave to be able to put themselves into the speaker’s shoes, to be spoken over and envision the world that the speaker gives light to.
The beautiful thing about poetry in general is that you are never forced to choose just one type or one form. A true poet lover can appreciate, if not enjoy, poetry in all its various styles because each one brings something new to the artistry table. While performance poetry often gives it audience an element of urgency and passions that written poetry often doesn’t, both practices will continue to be written and shared for the love of the words and the worlds it creates.